Alfonso Gesualdo

Alfonso Gesualdo di Conza (20 October 1540 – 14 February 1603) was an Italian Cardinal starting in 1561. He was from Calitri, not far from Naples. His attendance at the papal conclave of 1565-1566 at the age of only 25 makes him one of the youngest Cardinals ever to participate in a papal election.^[1]

Main door of Santa Aurea, Ostia Antica. The inscription reads in Latin, ALPH EPVS OSTIEN CARD GESVALDVS, "Alfonso, Bishop of Ostia, Cardinal Gesualdo."

He was Archbishop of Conza in 1564 (consecrated 23 April 1564 by Francesco Pisani), Bishop of Albano in 1583, Bishop of Frascati in 1587, Bishop of Porto e Santa Rufina in 1589, Bishop of Ostia in 1591, and Archbishop of Naples in 1596.

He was a patron of Sant'Andrea della Valle in Rome, the mother church of the Theatine Order.^[2] The composer Carlo Gesualdo was his nephew.

Episcopal succession

Episcopal succession of Alfonso Gesualdo

While bishop, he was the principal consecrator of:[3] Salvatore Caracciolo, Archbishop of Conza (1572); Marcantonio Pescara, Archbishop of Conza (1574); Silvio de Sainte-Croix, Archbishop of Arles (1574); Ippolito Aldobrandini (seniore), Pope of Rome (1592); Filippo Spinelli, Titular Bishop of Colossae and Coadjutor Bishop of Policastro (1592); Marco Magnacervo, Bishop of Lucera (1593); Vincenzo Giustiniani, Bishop of Gravina di Puglia (1593); Basilio Pignatelli, Bishop of L'Aquila (1593); Annibale D'Afflitto, Archbishop of Reggio Calabria (1593); Cesare Del Pezzo, Bishop of Valva e Sulmona (1593); Benedetto Mandina, Bishop of Caserta (1594); and Juan de Castro, Archbishop of Taranto (1600).